LITMIR.BIZ

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it is!’

      And, abruptly draining his glass, he placed it on the stained counter, planked down the payment, and strode out of the inn.

      Ben and Molly exchanged glances. The barmaid laughed.

      ‘Don’t you worry about him!’ she exclaimed. ‘Loony, that’s what he is! Well, what’ll you have?’

      ‘Three penn’orth o’ champagne,’ replied Ben, making an effort to hide his intense uneasiness at the red-faced man’s abrupt departure.

      ‘My! Aren’t you a wag!’ smiled the barmaid. ‘And the lady? Ain’t you going to treat her for picking up your cap? And a new one, too, ain’t it?’

      Sometimes, for no apparent reason, one’s mind will be diverted from a main issue to a trivial one. Ben’s mind, now, was diverted to his cap. Queer how often his cap cropped up in the conversation! Of course, it was all quite natural, really, but …

      Mechanically, he adjusted and completed his drink order, but his mind still flitted vaguely around his cap, or his cap flitted vaguely around his mind. Meanwhile, Molly was drawing casually closer, till her lips were within a few inches of his ear.

      ‘Drink it quickly,’ whispered the lips, ‘and go!’

      Ben donned an expression intended to convey the response, ‘I get yer.’ To anyone else it would merely have conveyed that he had suddenly got a fly in his eye.

      ‘Go to the right,’ whispered the lips again. ‘I’ll follow.’

      Ben repeated his expression. He now looked as if he had got two flies in his eye.

      ‘And leave your cap behind you,’ came the final whispered injunction.

      ‘There yer are,’ thought Ben. ‘Cap agine. Funny!’

      He approached the counter, took his glass of three-penny champagne, and held it aloft.

      ‘’Ere’s wot,’ he said.

      ‘Buenos dias,’ answered Molly.

      ‘That’s a new one!’ commented the barmaid. ‘Russian, ain’t it?’

      ‘No, Chinese,’ smiled Molly. ‘It means “Good luck and we’ll meet again!”’

      Ben grinned, and shoved his cap so far back on his head that it fell to the floor.

      ‘Well, I ’ope we do,’ he nodded, ‘becos’ now I gotter be orf.’

      He drained his glass, and made for the door.

      ‘Oh, and where are you off to?’ inquired the barmaid.

      ‘Mothers’ Meeting,’ answered Ben, ‘ter knit socks.’

      The next moment he was gone. The barmaid stared after him, and laughed.

      ‘Talk about lightning,’ she observed. ‘Bit of a hurry, wasn’t he?’

      ‘Yes, and he’s left his blessed cap behind!’ exclaimed Molly, suddenly. ‘I’d better go after him.’

      And, hastily emptying her own glass, she picked up the cap and made an equally hurried exit.

      For about ten minutes the barmaid’s life became dull again. She yawned, breathed on glasses, wiped, yawned, breathed, wiped, in dreary but philosophic sequence. Then life brightened once more, the door was pushed open, and a police officer entered.

      Behind came Joe, redder than ever with a kind of crimson triumph.

      ‘What did I say?’ he cried.

      As a matter of fact, he had not said anything; he had merely thought. But when your thought proves right, it is human to assume that you have spoken.

      The inspector silenced him with a sharp motion. Then he addressed the barmaid with even greater sharpness.

      ‘Where’s the couple who were in here just now?’ he demanded.

      ‘I’m sure I don’t know!’ replied the barmaid, her eyes popping.

      ‘When did they leave?’ barked the inspector.

      ‘Ten minutes ago!’ gasped the barmaid. ‘You’re never going to tell me—’

      ‘Know which way they went?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Did they leave together?’

      ‘No! Yes—’

      ‘Which? Which?’

      ‘Well, I’m all of a fluster! The man went first, and the girl went a few seconds after.’

      ‘Aha!’ exclaimed Joe, his triumph increasing. ‘Aha!’

      The inspector rushed out of the bar, gave an order, and rushed in again.

      ‘Now, then!’ he said. ‘How long were they in here, and look lively!’

      ‘I can’t look lively when you make me so breathless!’ returned the barmaid. ‘Three or four minutes, I should think.’

      ‘What did they do?’

      ‘He came in first, and she came in afterwards—’

      ‘Yes, yes, I know that. She came in after spilling a red herring! What happened when he left?’

      He jerked his thumb towards Joe.

      ‘Nothing happened,’ answered the barmaid.

      ‘Think again!’

      ‘Well, nothing happened that was anything, if you know what I mean. They had drinks—’

      ‘Drinks!’ cried the inspector. ‘Where are the glasses?’

      ‘Washed up.’

      ‘Damn! You’ve washed off their finger-prints!’

      ‘How was I to know—’

      ‘Yes, yes, all right! Did they seem in a hurry?’

      ‘He did! Tossed it down quicker than you talk! I thought to myself, “You’ve got a throat a mile wide, or you’d choke,” I thought. And then out he goes, leaving his cap behind.’

      ‘Cap, eh?’

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘Good! Where is it?’

      ‘She took it out after him. Naturally I thought—’

      ‘What you were intended to think,’ interposed the inspector, disappointedly. ‘A put-up job, of course. Otherwise she’d have come back, wouldn’t she? And you can’t think of anything else, eh?’

      ‘I can describe ’em,’ answered the barmaid, combatting an unjust sense of failure. ‘The man was a funny little fellow—’

      ‘In a greasy coat and a new cap,’ interrupted the inspector, ‘and the girl was small, too, but trim and neat, pretty and with brown hair.’ He glanced at Joe. ‘I’ve got their descriptions.’ He glanced back at the barmaid. His head moved as sharply as his tongue. ‘Well, if that’s all you can do for us—’

      ‘No, I can do a bit more!’ exclaimed the barmaid, suddenly recollecting. ‘They come from China!’

      ‘China?’ repeated the inspector, staring.

      ‘Yes! I know, because when she drank she said Buenos Aires or something, and it meant “Good luck and we’ll meet again.”’

      ‘Why, that fixes it!’ cried the inspector. ‘“Good luck to our escape and we’ll meet again outside!” You’ve been treated to a nice little bit of acting, miss! But your Buenos Aires don’t sound exactly Chinese to me.’

      ‘Well, she said it was,’ frowned the barmaid.

      ‘And

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